Chapter 3 Personality Perception and Attribution - School...

School of Hotel Administration HADM 1115: Organizational Behavior
Cornell University Fall 2008
Chapter 3 Personality Perception and Attribution
Individual Differences and Organizational Behavior
o Individuals = unique
 They have different skills, abilities, personalities, perceptions, attitudes, emotions,
and ethics
o Cause the challenge of management
 Managers must understand individual differences
o Basis to understand: Lewin’s early contention that behavior is a function of the person
and the environment
 He expressed this in an equation: B = ∫(P, E), where B = behavior, P = person and E
= environment.
• This idea has been developed by the interactional psychology
• Basically means you need to know about person and environment
o Four Basic propositions of interactional psychology
 Behavior is a function of a continuous multidirectional interaction between the
person and the situation
 The person is active in this process and is situations and changes situations
 People vary both changed by in many characteristics, including cognitive, affective,
motivational, and ability factors
 Two interpretations of situations are important
• The objective situation and the person’s subjective view of the situation
Personality and Organizations
o Personality is the relatively stable set of characteristics that influence an individual’s
behavior
 It has several origins
• Heredity
• Environment
o Trait Theory
 Early researches believed that we must break down behavior patterns into a series of
observable traits
 Trait Theory is the belief that when you combine these traits into a group it forms an
individual’s personality
 Gordon Allport
 Thousands of traits have been identified
 Raymond Cattell identified 16 traits that formed the basis for differences in
individual behavior
• Ex. self-assured/apprehensive
o Big Five Personality Model
 The Big Five is one popular personality classification
 The Personality Traits are:
• Extraversion
• Agreeableness
• Conscientiousness
• Emotional Stability
• Openness to Experience
 Some people claim that this is too simple and diluted

School of Hotel Administration HADM 1115: Organizational Behavior
Cornell University Fall 2008
o Integrative Approach
 Personality is described as a composite of the individual’s psychological processes
 Personality dispositions include emotions cognitions attitudes expectancies and
fantasies
• Simply individuals’ tendencies to respond to situations in consistent ways
• Influenced by genetics and experiences
• Can be modified
o